I’ve been thinking alot lately about life and how humans spend their time during said life. 97% of Americans get born, go to preschool, grade school, high school, maybe college, and then maybe grad school. After that they get a job where they spend most of their time doing as little as possible while trying to still look busy enough to be able to climb the corporate ladder. Everyone’s end goal is to make a big a salary as possible while doing as little work as possible.
All the while these people play with their friends on an intramural softball team during the week and then go out and “party” on weekends until eventually they find someone of the opposite sex that can stand them for long periods of time and then they usually then get married and have some kids. 60 years on down the road after a few new cars and a couple new houses and a couple grand kids they drop dead, probably from heart failure, after socially smoking and drinking all of the time when they were younger.
I guess my question is whatever happened to the American Spirit? What ever happened to guys like Ben Franklin, and Thomas Edison. Men that dedicated their lives to improving the world they live in. It seems to me that those guys didn’t give a shit about money, they just wanted to be the first to harness electricity or invent the light bulb. Early Americans risked life and limb to head west, basically for no other reason then just to see what the hell was out there. Later on Americans built shit, like railroads, automobiles, and even hydroelectric dams. If in 1904 you wanted to sail your ship across South America without having to go all the way down and around the whole continent what would you do? You would call the Americans, we’ll fucking take care of it, we’ll just cut a giant hole right through the middle of a treacherous land mass…bam! problem solved.
Even in the mid 20th century we were still getting crazy.”Lets build a giant fucking arch that serves no real purpose and has no real function in a medium sized Midwest American city. Why? because we can. What? 16 men are dead and the arch isn’t finished yet? Who gives a shit, we want an arch!”…and so it went.
Americans were obsessed with advancement, men risking life and limb to invent airplanes, be the first to the moon, or even sculpt presidents faces on the side of a mountain. Men took pride in what they were doing…they found fulfillment in their work. If you can’t find fulfillment at your current job at the local bar, or enterprise rent a car or the board of trade then find a different job that will offer you fulfillment because you can’t be great at something unless you love it. Maybe then you will finally be able to take a little pride in what you do and maybe just maybe we can recapture some of that spirit that made America great.
it’s 10:15 and I’ve already taken 2 dumps at work.
If that’s not American Ingenuity, I dont know what is, Myles.
It’s good to have the Senator back.
What happened to American Ingenuity? Too many Americans started their own blogs.
Pot was legal back then. Thus creativity, ingenuity were rampant.
Most people are not especially talented in ways that will help them create great new things for humanity. Mediocrity, or worse, is the rule with humans. But that still leaves the question of whether able men (yes, it’s mostly men) of today are resting on their laurels or trying their hardest to make the world a better place.
I think most people strive for comfort and security, and shy away from risk (a necessary component to the “American Ingenuity” you describe). Comfort and security are amply provided for in the U.S. The poor in the U.S. have material well-being equivalent to the European middle-class. The common person in the U.S. enjoys a level of comfort never before seen in human history. And this dear Byrd is the problem; why create the next great thing when Big Brother is on tonight?
We’ve become a culture that celebrates mediocrity, because it would be embarrassing for the vast majority of people to have retained a culture of excellence. Simply put, the majority has spoken, and it wants to live off the income (and principal) of the trust fund of human achievement endowed by previous generations. Implications for democratic rule aside, it really is up to the individual to choose to strive for excellence, or to settle for a gauzy, television induced pleasure-stupor. Choosing the former will open one to hostility from most (elitist! striver! workaholic!), but few who choose the path seem to regret it. Here’s hoping enough folks avoid the latter path.